The Sun. — London, England, 1818-01-23 00:00:00

OF THE RONIAN CATHOLIC QUESTION. FOit TfIE SUN. PART V. Mx.tprrott,—Paracy is exceptionable, because it is idolatrous, calculated for arbitrary power, and is incompatible with freedom. Many per sons ‘vho profess it are good, charitable, and humane, but from early prejudices do not see its consequences, or from a mistaken principle stifle their judgments, and think it a duty to be of the religion of their ancestors. With these all Pio- testants can live in charity and peace, though . they cannot join them in civil power, unless the Church and State are secured against possible danger. As this cannot be, while, from the very spirit of their faith, they are inimical to the former, they are justly ineligible and inadmissible. In all ages and places sects and schism 3 were found 'dangerous to civil Government, as the cause of private combination against the.-laws, which obliged the- Magistrate to repress them ; but as. this often enflamed and increased the evil, time and experience suggested the more wholesome, though paradoxical, remedy of tolerating what could not be approved. Restraint, which gave the object importance, was taken away, and the liberty of the risind succeeded. 'When 1.3;11011 GARDINER, by his persecuting spirit in Queen MARY'S time, argued on toleration, be overbore the mild and persuasive language of Cardinal Pot. r. in its favour, and being sanctioned by this bigoted and sanguinary Queen, it drenched the Kingdom in human gore. Something similar happened on the CnntineOt under the Emperor CHARLES V. who throughout his life had endea voured to extirpate heresy, which produced him nothing hut confusion and disappointment. The violence of the laws here of Queen MARY, in sup port of the Roman Catholic Religion, has rendered it ever since abhorrent to the people of England, who glory in the Reformation, and no wickedness Can equal revenge and cruelty when covered with the cloak of religion. In the time of Icing JAMES I. his Ministers Were called persecutors of the Puritans or Pro. testant Dissenters, who deemed themselves the only trite Church, and held that none other should be tolerated. The Clergy who refused to comply with the legal requisites, were deprived of their livings, and properly so, as none should enjoy a heue.fiee who resists its conditions, and lanolis them to scorn. Uniformity in religion has been at all times found necessary to civil Government, and that even Protestant Sectaries should be excluded from it. Lird BACON . was convidced that schism tended to its subversion, and nothing but the idolatry of Roman Catholics excluded the sect of Protestants in Roman Catholic Countries. To repeal, therefore, the Corporation and Test Acts might lead to the downfal of the National Church, and melt its Bishops and Clergy into . no thing ; but it is contended tlrit no one ought to pay for opinions he does not believe, nor be de prived of an opportunity to seri:e his country as a non Con. It is the pertinacity of opinions, and an enmity to the Church established, that keeps them at a due distance. They have a right to enjoy the one, and nothing but the other justifies Pat liament in dispntsing with their services for the good of the Country. Some there are even among Protestant Dissenters who call toleration a .rag of Popery to suppOrt iniquity by law, yet the Legislature has liberally granted it to Roman Catholics in full, though it had multiplied corrup tions in doctrioe and discipline, and is the most absurd system of Christianity that ever annoyed, the good sense of man'. This, as favouring despotism at the expellee of liberty, now calls aloud on Par liament either to dismiss their application, or to guard, by all human means, in case of a-com pliance with their request, the safety of Church and State. TERRA FILMS. GIBRALTAR, JAN. I.—" A report has within a a few days been in circulation of the most tiiabo lie4l outrages having been committed in Algiers, and particularly that 011 Christians aml Jews were compelled to turn Moors ; hut this report, 1 ant Ithppy to fin% is false. By letters received from thence, ten days old, it seems that there had been a plan to depose the Dey ; but he bay ing retired to the Alcassava with his faithful ad herents, and removed there all the treasure, be has set his opponents at defiance ; and after some of them were killed, the head of the party who intended to set np a new Dey fled." • aranßlTE.—Letters have been received by the London Missionary Society, stating that idolatry is completeiy abolished in Otahei,te and Mimeo, amd in a considerable degree in other. islands adjacent. The King, Pomare, has sent all his family idols to the Missionaries, desiring them either to destroy them or send them to Europe, that the people of England may see what " foolish gods" they formerly worshipped. rOR THE SUN. Ara EDIToR,4.—It has always been a gratification to me to peruse your Constitutional Paper, arid more particularly so when I . see you boldly avow"- ing those sentiments of undaunted attachment to the excellent principles of our Country's Religious Establishment, the Protestant Faith, which do you honour, as a true British Subject; and in which every Briton must participate, if he rightly fear his God, honour his King, love his Country, and would see her still a land of honourable freedom, and of glorious independence. I am led to hope that tie authentic statements in ta►e valuable communications of your Corres pontlents,LANPANNC, WICK LIFFE,TERRE"FiLIUS, and others, may have the effect of convincing very considerable numbers of the impious and untenable assumptions of Popery, and of the palpable errors, the fallacy, superstition, intolerant spirit of per secution, and bigoted cruelty, which mark the principles and the tenets held by the Roman Ca tholic Church ; and the consequent ineligibility of her members to fill any, at least high, political stations in a Protestant State. One should suppose it obvious to all who reflect a moment on the subject, that any mortal who should assume attributes applicable to the Deity only, must be guilty of the most arrogant impiety and presumption—yet many of these arc claimed and allowed of the Pope ; tOr instance, it is an assumption of Divine Power to claim, as of him self, to forgive sins, remit offences, and do other innumerable acts which are compatible with the power of Omnipotence alone to compass; but even this not "'without money and without price," but by means of the grossest : species of bribery and corruption. Hs whose birth was an nounced to - mankiad with the salutation of peace and good will to men, has said, " how hardly shall a rich man enter into the king dom of Heaven ;" not because his riches, taken distinctively, render him ineligible, but because their tendency, is to warp the human heart from its only true dependance upon its Maker, to lead it to the self-sufficient exclamation, " I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of no thing," and to trust to the ever vanishing pleasures which wealth may procure in this world. We be- . lieve, concordantly to those sacred writings which the Romish Church prohibits to be pro mulgated by distribution among her members, that " we cannot be redeemed with corruptible things, as airier and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as or a lamb without blemish and without spot." In this instance, then, how totally opposite to the pure faith of the Protes tant is the corrupt practice of the Romish Church. According to the latter, it would, on the other baud be, '' how easily shall a rich mail enter into the kingdom of Heaven " by the purchase of re mittances, dispensations, and the like, from the mortal, but infallible Pope I . What can be a more untenable assumption than the infallibility claimed by the Head of the Church of Rome ? It would be occupying, needlessly, space in your valuable columns to produce the Often-adduced instances of it. Again, what doc trine can he more untenable and more evidently absurd than that man's inherent righteousness is the • meritorious cause of his justification, and that good works, "ad vitani, eternam conse- . quendam verepromereri," instead of that " whole some doctrine" so " full of comfort " to the . true Christian, that "we are accounted righteous by God, only for the merits of our Lord and Saviour, Jesns . Christ, by Faith." .The intolerant and persecuting spirit of the Romanists has been manifested in every age ; we need only turn to the pages of authenticated His tory, and we see deeds recorded of superstitious barbarity from which the soul recoils with horror even at the recital. I hare heard it advanced by some of my fellow -Protestant subjects (on whose solid intelligence respecting these matters no very material reliance Might be placed), that the Catholics of the pre sent day differ front those of former ages ; that they do not cute' tain the same bigoted enmity towards the Protesrant world as heretofore ; that the barbarity and superstition of those darker ;Ages . have given place to• dispositions and in clinations more temperate, pacific, benignant, that they are more mild and enlightened, and not of the relentless principles towards us as hereto fore ! What ! the members of the Catholic Church in anywise altered !—The true mem bers of the infallible Church less tenacious of their doctrines or more amicably inclined towards heretics (such Protestants are avowed .to he) than formerly !---impossible ; or they must relinquish their title to the infallibility of their Church.— No ! their principles and sentiments always were, they are, trey always will, remain the same.— Has it not within a very short period been, so avowed ? Is this not their pride ? Undoubtedly, and it is essential to their faith to hold all Pro testants to be Heretics,—and they are bound by the tenets of that faith, to the best of their power, to exterminate all Heretics, and destroy all He retical Establishments.." Let all secular powers, whatsoever be the nature and, rank of their re spective offices, be admUnished, persuaded, and if necessary compelled, by Ecclesiastical censures, that, as they desire to be reputed and esteemed faithful, they publicly take an oath, that they will, to the utmost of their power, endeavour to exterminate all such as shall be denounced Here tics by the Church," Ste. is an extract front the 3d chap. of the Fourth Council of Lateran, most apposite to the foregoing assertion. More over, their Bishops, at their consecration, take an oath, " Heretics, Schismatics, and Rebels to our Holy Father and his Successors, I shall resist and persecute to my power," . &c. (Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation, vol. I. p. 123). It is needless in this place to point out particular instances from amongst the innumerable that must be remembered by all who have even slightly perused the records of fornier times. The 'object they seek in these persecutions, and their nature, Tillotson points out, when he in his first Sermon, vol. 3. shews the doctrines of Popery to " be the extirpation of heretics, the lawfulness of deposing Eings, and subverting Government by all the cruel and wicked ways that can be thought of."—" Let us beware (says be) of that church which countenanceth this unchristian sprit," — which teacheth " that all who differ from theta in matters of faith are to be extirpated by fire and sword, which was decreed in the 3J and 4th Lateran Council, where all are strictly charged to endeavour this to the utmost of their power." — So also Bishop Sherlock, in his sth Pastoral Let ter on the danger and mischiefs of Popery, (printed for Owen, Warwick-lane, 1751) tens us, that " the House of Peers represented to the Queen (Anne) that it was obsoletely necessary for the safety of her Aajesty's royal person and Government, that a more watchful eye should be had over the Romish Priests arid Papists," &c. (p., 6.) " Because the Church of England has purged herself from these idolatries of supersti tions, we are become Heretics in the account of the Church of Rome ; as such, the sentence of excommunication is yearly denounced against us by the Pope, and our destruction is declared to be a meritorious work." (p. 11.) He then proceeds in proof of this, and afterwards observes, " we are all abundantly convinced, that whatever strength they have, will, upon a fair opportunity, be employed against us," &c. It would seem necessary but to call to mind the bloody rebellion in our sister country, in the year 1798, in full confirmation of the Bishop's previous assertion—the enormous barbarities, the bloody and tormenting massacres there com mitted, must he yet fresh in the recollection of man y. Well might Newton, Bishop of Bristol, sa y, " the heathen Emperor of Rome may have slain his thousands of innocent Christians, but the Christian Bishop of Rome bath slain his ten thousands. There is scarce any country that bath not at one time or other been made the stage of these bloody tragedies ; scarce any age that bath not .at one place or other seen them acted." Now what can create so incessant a desire in the breasts of the Roman Catholics to be admit ted to fill offices in our State I Surely, a Catholic cannot in his heart hold in esteem honours con ferred upon him by an heretical Government—they cannot be congenial to his feelings ; one should suppose him too proud to accept them. But though lucrative motives alone might be sufficient to silence such feelings, it cannot for a moment be supposed that a Catholic is ambitious to be ap pointed to stations of trust or importance in a Protestant Dominion, for n the sake of promoting its welfare and prosperity-4 his alone is sufficient to cause a suspicion that some secret design lurks beneath the specious, but equivocal assurances of good faith we have of late received from the members of the Rotnish Church in these King doms.—" n'est-ce pas enfin une trainee de poudre, a laquelle on pent mettre un jour le feu ?" It is not scrupled to avow that they consider the Protes tatz•t Establishment as an usurpation. Dr. Troy, the Rornish Archbishop of Ireland, has avowed it in the following words :—" Henty the Vlllth of England was the first Christian Prince that assumed Ecclesiastical Supremacy, and commanded an en slaved Parliament to enact it as a Law of the State. The Catholics consider it as an usurpation." It is clear also that the admission of Papists to share in our Protestant Government cannot con duce to the general welfare of the Catholics in the British dominions : the lower classes would in no degree be benefited, but influence and power would only accumulate on those who are not in need of it for any good purpose, and whoie num bers would bear but a very small proportion to the bulk of the Catholic body Let us here pause a moment, and consider then what may be the secret spring of this ambition, and what may," its ultimate end should it, unhappily for our fre e i and glorious country, succe e d in th e attainme nt of its primary object. The sound Lawyer, S ir Wm. Blackstone, speaking of that master-Pie,. cg a . of Papal policy, the _endeav ou r t o gra sp at tu" lands and inheritance of the kingdom, by the in ,: troduction of " the Monks of the Benedictin; and other rules, men of sour and austere religion' is says, that they attempted " fascinating the of the people by pretences to extraordinary son% tity, while all their aim was to aggrandize d i d power, and extend the influence' of their gre" superior, the Pope." Again, the same writers in his 4th volume—" Every encouragement °f the Papal power is a diminution of the authoritY 'of the Crown." " And it (sayi the before-4 11 ° ) ; tinned Bishop Newton) we should connive e` the growth of Popery, and suffer, their numbe rg , to increase, &c. who can be our security that till like bloody tragedies (alluding to those scenes °E bigoted persecution and cruelty about the m iddle of the seventeenth century) may not, and will ne e be acted again ?" That power, therefore, 13 1 ever been considered dangerous to be trwt e l in the hands of the Papists—and that power i t they are aspiring to, is evident ; And it is 110 an unwarrantable or an uncharitable presull 3 P . tion (with the • pages of history, filled as did' are with the recital of former conseqtiee ces : of their possessing it, before our eyes) td) d' in the attainment of this first object, they tr vance one very important step t o w a rds a 6e ‘ .. . sign, no less than the_ subvetsion of our C oo _-' stitutional Establishment. They must seek it" -, t j it is an imperative duty to which they a re urg ed (as before remarked) by the tenets of their Isi ti os ia On what they rest their hopes of success I g o ignorant, nor how they expect to surmount 111 ' should seem to be (so long as faithfully preserve` inviolate) an effectual bar to their claiins -. " Coronation Oath, which contains all express C O ; tract between the Prince and th e People, by i d former to maintain and preserve the Prote 6 " l 4 Religion, as established at di e R e f orma tion ; consctjunitly he is bound, by necessary lion, " to resist all concessions and p r ivileges 1 any class of his subjects, which would impair °( 4 weaken that Establisisment ; though perhaps would not he at first attended, or immeditto l g followed, by its total subversion, It should be here remarked, that for man y e j the roierences to the passages I have above riva it e , irlysef of, I ant iodehted to an ingenious and 5 %c cacic publication, which I sincerely wish was the present period in circulation—it mi g ht .gre 3tif ,' assist in refreshing in the minds of all crs to our Country the remembrance of the ° be surd, inimic a l, . an d erroneous (doctrines Of Church of Rome, and the utter impossibility, c their admission to pl aces o f trust or power 1.1" - 4 our Government, consiste nt l y w i t h i ts .safety. 14 ' publication alluded to, is entitled " The C 4 °; oizatiOn of Thomas W—, Esq." %Ow has lat el .," erected at East L--, Dorset, a n o tia stere &c. The stanzas by Sternhold and Hopk l°l ' and the notes by Addison, Archbishop son, Hume, Rennell, &c. are It is true, that the circumstances which g rise to these Stanzas were local; an d oceoll e , more than 17 years ago, but the monastry drilled in existence till within a f ew ion t A ls ' ihe myself visited:aVery part of it, as well magnificent castle, 'within whose Contains stands, it was then possessed by the same fani7 ll as heretofore, Th e l atter h as a sp l en did cbsPe and boasts of numerous holy relics carefully ranged and preserved on either side the altar' 7 Monks, I have h ea rd, dep a rted for France the course of the last year. ALBER T. LIAM BURGH PAPERS. STOCMIOI.I4, Dec. 26.—A remarkable Pe els ' ration has now appeared, made by his Majesty its the Council of State, and delivered to the Die t - -jf the Chancellor hic His Majesty, who laid before the States , gracious proposal respecting the general ct t g colating currency, and the Mainteoance of / a l value, informs them, that as his constitution duties do not prescribe to his Majesty . 13 7 0 proposal of the kind, his Majesiy's 14 0 4 view was to meet the wishes of the Stale $ of the Public, and give the Diet a fresh prod' ca his confidence, by communicating the viewi plans which appeared t o his M a j e sty the hest e 4 • m culated to attain the great objects o f aintain' ni , .7. the value of the currency, promoting the drew tion, and encouraging industry. His MoiC st , 3l l who-loves to rely implicitly on the patriotism 41 ;, 0 enlightened views of the Diet, will be hePPY- re learn that the States have discovered means M il o ,. conformable to the important end than those p r y posed, and he may himself reap the fruits of stl. great exertions. " His Majesty will find satisfaction in the fin; sciousness of having spared no pains to attain o ; same end, and his chief reward in the welfare c' the country. " But his Majesty, in leaving it to the Sta te 6 to develop at the sam e ti me . t h e i mporta nce ° i maintaining the public currency, as also the meo s ' embraces this opportunity to declare that, his jesty and his Royal Highness the Crown Prirce " not intend to make in future, as they hake hither to done, anysacrifices for this purpose; but that henc e ; forward the Stat es a l one are c h argea bl e w ith responsible care to maintain in its vekpe the cur; rency which is issued under their guarantee, 10 which represents all the private property in 61' 0 ' lation. As the States have the choice of the meaoh it is also their business to take measures to ex ea cute them ; and his Majesty is assured, that th e Representatives of the Nation will neglect notbil to fulfil th e ex p ectat i on o f hi s M a j est y needo the Nation. if the States will estimate necessary means, and apply to his Moles t ( ) to join his en d eavours i n t hi s res p ec t wit h those of the Agents of the Bank, his A a. jesty, fully convinced of the iiitlience of the to°' ney system on the general welfare, is not inti s ' posed to contribute to it on his part, ano 'he sad i flees already made by his Majesty and W" Crown Prince for this end, give the State a O f f pledge of the continued care which his Maiest;